The invention relates to a device for locking electrical devices, in particular power tools, with battery packs for power supply, and to a battery pack and an electrical device. The term “battery pack” used here is intended also to include battery packs that contain rechargeable batteries (also known as accus).
For securing a battery pack acting as a power supply, large, heavy power tools that are guided by hand, such as drill hammers or the like, in particular have a device of the type defined above, with a two-stage locking means known as a double locking means. In older devices, a locking bar is provided in a housing of the electrical device and is movable counter to the force of a spring. The locking bar enters successively into engagement with two detent grooves in the battery pack, which are cut out one after the other, in the direction of the relative motion during the attachment of the battery pack, in a part of the battery pack located diametrically opposite the locking bar. The front detent groove, with which the locking bar enters into engagement first as the battery pack is being attached, serves there to connect the battery pack to the housing of the power tool in such a way that it can no longer be release from the housing, unless the locking bar is actuated manually. This assures that for transporting the power tool, the battery pack is fixed in the power tool housing so that it is secured against falling out, but as yet without contact between the terminals of the battery pack and of the power tool. This contact is not established until the battery pack is thrust by the user far enough into the power tool housing that the locking bar engages the rear detent groove, after having been forced out of the front detent groove automatically at the onset of this insertion motion.
On the one hand, manufacturers of various battery-operated electrical devices want not only to embody the battery packs such that they can be used in all kinds of devices, but also to largely standardize the devices in terms of their interface with the battery pack, by using essentially the same locking mechanism in all kinds of devices. On the other hand, a double locking means is usually not wanted in all of these kinds of devices, for example because a double locking means is unnecessary in devices with small, lightweight battery packs, or because in some devices the customer does not expect a double locking means and hence mistakenly already assumes that proper contact between the electrical device or the battery pack is established upon engagement of the locking bar or locking bars with the front detent groove or the detent grooves.